You Fight Your Demons
by penwielder62
Summary: It's when the sun sets and the night falls that the strength fades from Erin's limbs and she watches minutes slip away, waiting for him to come home. A follow-up drabble to the masterpiece that was CPD 3x17 "A Forty-Caliber Bread Crumb".
I finished watching CPD 3x17 live, retreated to my room, spent an hour screaming with my Tumblr peeps, and then started this monstrosity after midnight. Official completion time was 3:45AM, so there's your reasoning for all typos, weird phrasing, and rampant emotions.

3x17 won this season and is quite possibly the strongest episode this year. Still not over it and never will be.

(Credit to the creators of C _hicago P.D._ where it is due.)

* * *

Erin walks the length of her apartment, tread unhurried but steady. Not quite pacing but she can't sit still, with another glance at the clock on the wall. It's getting late, her phone is dark, and the silence is starting to eat at her. Pain pounds behind her eyes, settling low in her teeth, a physiological response to the weight of the day. It's still surreal, the loss, even though it was secondhand.

She hadn't ever thought it would be like this but now she knows how it was for Jay, when Yates was back in Chicago. Wanting so badly to be able to support your partner, to take the weight and give them someone to lean on, but both cases were too close to their hearts to share easily. Jay had managed it more than she had, allowing her within his defenses for brief moments, letting the team see, even if unintentionally, how deep this had cut him.

But now it's been five hours since the funeral—the memory of Jay in his uniform still leaves her reeling, there's so much she _doesn't know_ —and Erin knows that he'd gone for drinks with Mouse and Doctor Cho afterwards, but she hasn't heard from him since that text.

Jay won't do anything stupid but that doesn't mean she isn't worried. Fingers kneading the back of her neck, Erin switches directions to get a beer from the fridge, hoping it will settle her stomach. Between a low-ebbing headache and the anxiety thrumming in her veins, her stomach is churning.

She just wants to know he's _safe_. Her two texts from earlier have gone unanswered and Erin made the decision around nine that if she hadn't heard from him or he hadn't come home by midnight, she'd start calling around.

Popping the cap off the brown bottle, Erin leans back against the counter so she can see the clock on the microwave, a long breath leaving her. This is what you never get told about being involved with your partner, what you never anticipate. Yes, the cases, the _deaths,_ that strike deep and tear them apart, but knowing that it could've been her visiting Terry's wife today—because both their men had been killed.

That was what got to Erin. She took a long draught of the alcohol in her hand, eyes watering again. She hadn't been on the scene, but Al had let her pull him aside later, to ask how close it'd been. _Too close_. Ten feet, barely, and there hadn't been any cover to speak of when he'd rushed to Terry, no one watching his six.

Days like today remind her that they're all still mortal. Maybe they work in Hank's unit, maybe they feel invincible because they're the best of the best, but they still break, and bleed, and they still _die._

Terry is the proof of that. Nadia is the proof of that.

Another breath, another drink.

 _Come home, Jay, please. I need to know you're safe._

Erin stands in her kitchen for another ten minutes, finishing her beer, before starting to clean to keep her hands busy. The irony almost makes her smile—she's cleaning because of him—but Jay's not there to share in her humor and so the bubble drains away somewhere between the washer and the bathroom. She makes the bed but can't get all the creases out like Jay does. The bathtub still has water stains despite her best efforts because Erin can't recall which cleaning acid Jay uses on it and for how long. Vacuuming is a successful venture, however, as is cleaning the kitchen.

It's past eleven, Erin's hands are raw, but she stands contemplating rearranging her living room while waiting the last forty-five minutes before she'll let herself go find him. The pain in her head is spiking, though, throbbing in time with her heartbeat and intense enough to make her have to take regular breaks to squeeze her eyes shut and hope it dulls.

Erin bites her thumbnail, surveying the placement of her already sparse furniture, and then hears the lock on her door click. She's already turning and taking a step forward, lungs catching with relief, when he pushes open the door and steps inside.

Checking him over for obvious signs of injury or distress, Erin holds back the storm of emotions that swell in her chest— _where have you been, you should've called, are you okay?_ Because it doesn't matter anymore. He's home, he's safe, and no, he's not okay, she can see that, but he's _home_.

Jay looks spent, all the tension and anguish that'd been lingering in his eyes, his body, having drained away sometime in the last few hours and leaving exhaustion in its place. Erin comes forward silently to help him out of his jacket, hanging it on the hook before facing Jay again.

His gaze is settled on her face, withdrawn, waiting for her to indicate how the night is going to go between them, but Erin's caught on the cut to his cheekbone, the red-rimming to his eyes. Reaching up with both hands, she cradles his face in her hands and her throat closes when he leans into her touch, his eyes sliding shut as his own hands come up to cover hers.

"I'm sorry it's so late—" Jay whispers, and his voice is raw, cracking and breaking like she's never heard before.

Erin's already shaking her head, stepping close enough that her bare feet brush the insides of his boots, the texture of his pants rough against her bare legs.

There's something indescribably intimate to her about standing in a thin tank top and her underwear while he's not out of his shoes yet, a feeling that's only heightened when she goes up on tiptoe to wrap her arms around his neck, fingers dragging through his hair. Jay's hands are warm against her back as he brings them down to pull her close, his hold tight enough that she can feel the desperation, the grief.

"I've got you," Erin reassures, her own words unsteady because she doesn't need him to say anything to know that he'd finally been overcome, sometime in the last six hours when she couldn't reach him. That the loss had processed all the way through, now that the killer has been brought to justice and there's nothing more to be done but _grieve_.

Erin can't—won't—hold it against him, that he'd kept the depths of his pain to himself. Jay is here now, letting her close and that's all she wants. To know that he's not alone, to be the one he wants beside him.

How long they stay there, leaning on each other, is beyond Erin. She doesn't care, either, because Jay shakes against her even though he doesn't make a noise. You'd have to kill her to get her to put even a foot between them at that moment.

But the torrent of emotion subsides and Jay's fingers cease digging into her ribs, instead smoothing up her back to her shoulders so he can encourage her to loosen her hold. Obliging just enough so that she can see his face, Erin murmurs, "Do you want a shower?"

Where there would usually be humor, teasing, or something far more heated, Jay is all jagged edges and raw wounds, stating, "Not alone."

"Never." The promise rolls off her tongue and Erin hugs him tight again for a lingering minute before stepping back to take his hands in hers and walk them deeper into her apartment.

Lights are turned off as they go until darkness reins behind them when they retreat to the sanctuary of Erin's room. She leaves him to get out of his shoes while she cranks on the water in the shower, glad now for her spurt of anxious cleaning. Jay's settling his boots in the corner where they always go when Erin comes back and he glances over at her, gaze lingering for a long moment and her head tilts in unvoiced curiosity.

But whatever thought is on his mind, Jay doesn't share it, instead crossing the carpet to her, his hands finding her hips and her eyes finding his. The exhaustion is shared, both stripped bare by the devastating blow, and Erin lets her head drop forward to rest against his collarbone.

 _I can't lose you. Don't leave me alone. I think I love you._ The words get stuck somewhere between her chest and her tongue, and won't be moved.

Jay gets them both into the shower and Erin just wants to be pressed against him, the hot water beating down between her shoulders and masking the evidence of her tears. Her partner is in a similar state, touches lingering, becoming caresses that soothe them both, helping to ease his guilt and calm her fear.

It's when the water gets tepid that they leave the shower, Jay stopping to brush his teeth while Erin goes to find pajamas and crawl into bed. The clock has ticked past midnight and her limbs drag as she reaches to turn off the lamp on her side of the bed, casting the room into shadow.

The linen sheets are cool and smooth, a welcoming embrace as Erin slides beneath the covers, laying close to the middle of the bed. She closes her eyes but follows the sounds of Jay finishing in the bathroom—faucet off, collect the laundry and toss it in the hamper, close the shower curtain—and moving into the rest of the room after that light is extinguished as well. He rifles through one of his drawers in the dresser, finding a pair of boxers to sleep in before he approaches the bed.

Erin's eyes open again when he doesn't immediately get in and she watches him just stand there for a long minute, upright and lost in his own thoughts, his military bearing showing even now. She'll never forget the blow that it'd been to see him come up to cathedral to meet her in his Army mess dress, a different man, someone she didn't know.

"Jay," she scarce breathes his name, fingers curling into her own shirt at the pain squeezing her heart. There's so much that's a mystery, one that she doesn't know she'll ever unravel, but tonight she just wants whatever part of himself that Jay will give her. "Come to bed."

Her voice breaks him out of his reverie and her partner murmurs his acquiescence, setting onto the bed with an apparent lack of conversation and Erin's ready to throw out a random question—she wants to hear his _voice—_ but Jay shifts until he's braced on one elbow above her. The smell of mint and body wash drifts off him but it's his tentative touch to her cheek, her lips, brushing back her drying hair that breaks Erin's heart.

There's unspoken words in the quiet—explanations, apologies, promises—but they don't find voice because Erin shakes her head once. "Just kiss me, Jay."

It's a plea, a need for assurance, one that Erin couldn't find in herself to voice in the light. She seeks eye-contact now though, through the darkness of their room, and gets it when Jay surrounds her, one arm above her head while he thumbs her chin and presses a slow kiss to her mouth.

Erin lets herself get lost in the slant of his lips against her, the taste of spearmint, the scent of him that overwhelms her senses. They're too spent to go farther but the gentle intimacy is enough—a silent _I'm here, I'm okay, we're going to be okay_.

Jay kisses her until drowsiness has made them languid, settling onto his back and Erin uses an arm around Jay's waist to pull herself at a diagonal angle over her partner. She falls asleep with her head on his chest where she can hear his heart, right hand trapped beneath his back and his hand pressed against the curve of her spine, having crept beneath her shirt.

The warmth of his touch is the only thing that keeps Erin asleep that night.

* * *

Thank you for perusing this scrawl! Comments, critiques, and concerns are always welcome.


End file.
